Valkyrie Saga: The Masked Murderers
by Dorian Whitewater
Summary: Being hard up for gold, the Valkyrie guild takes on a mission from SI:7 to hunt down the worlds most dangerous assassins


Sorix landed on her feet, holding the two blades in an arc above her head. She stood in stance ready to strike again. The two orcs stumbled back, spitting blood to the side and readying their axes. They looked at each other and nodded before facing Sorix again.

It was a surprise attack to be sure. Four of them dropped before they even realized where the attacker was coming from. Sorix took advantage of the cold stone room's shadows to duck in and out of sight easily. Her skill was unnatural on its own, but aided by the black magic of the shadow council, she was nearly untraceable, unstoppable, and a whirlwind of chaos and death. Yet with all this power, she was still mortal, like them, and was bleeding from cuts on her stomach and her arms. Her eyes seemed to glow faintly a smoky purple.

The orcs grunted and cried out their war cries, none of this seemed to bother Sorix, who kept her eyes fixed on her two enemies. She blinked once and tilted her head slightly downwards, trying to read her opponent's next move.

As predicted, the first orc charged and swung at her blades. This was a sloppy move, but only proved as a distraction as the orc vaulted over her and trapped her in the hallway. Sorix grimaced slightly under her ebon mask. This would be difficult.

The orc in front of her charged, as did the one behind her and bother came within striking distance. Calming herself and trying to maintain her focus, she dodged each blade strike with celerity, flattening her body, twisting it and making small leaps to slide into the gaps of the blades. The orc behind her was knocked down by a swift backwards kick. The orc in front of her took a powerful swing from the ground and tried to cleave Sorix in half. She stepped slightly to the side and launched her blade into the hilt of the axe, making the controlled swing awkward and heavy, throwing the orc's arms back farther than he had anticipated. Sorix then thrust the blade of her offhand into the orc's skull, ran up his body and vaulted over the orc, twisting the blade. She grabbed her other blade from the axe hilt still in the orc's hands, and used the resistance of the orc's neck to swing around and cleave off its head quite messily. Sorix returned to her stance with the orc's head still stuck on her blade. She looked behind her and found that the other warrior was beginning to regain his composure. Thinking fast, Sorix flipped the orc head into the air from her blade, and then kicked it down the hallway that struck the other orc in the temple.

The orc had about enough. He entered a blood lusted fury, enraged and fueled by rage, he gained strength and his wounds didn't seem to matter anymore. He no longer felt the pain of battle, but only the rush and it drove him deeper into the berserk. He launched himself from the ground, tossing the lose stones and bodies aside and stood with murder in his eyes.

Sorix cocked the lever back on her blunderbuss as she held it mere inches from the orc's face. His expression changed almost instantly. All he could see was the pitch black of the barrel and the smell of gunpowder. Sorix pulled the trigger and his world seemed to stop. The flame lit up the barrel and then the world became black.

The small town of Goldshire never got overly populated, even in these times of war. Seated in the shadow of the mighty fortress Stormwind, it had only ever had the minor problems of Defias raiders from time to time. Yet with most of the tranquility that was seemed to be harbored in this small town, it seemed to be the central node for all of the world's information and news. Word of anything traveled fast among the adventurers and guardsmen who passed through on their way to Stormwind Keep. As well, many of the bounties were also placed here by various organizations, hoping to exploit the highway town's traffic.

Telica took a look at the message board near the tavern that was over posted with wanted ads, guild recruitment requests, and various other things of interest. It wasn't that long ago that she had been recruited herself into an all female guild. Those were not that common in this day and age, but it held well. Although it was an old guild, finding contracts for work was work in and of itself.

Telica blew back the strands of her platinum hair and reached up on the board to move a few of the help wanted posters aside to search for the buried treasure, or so her partner had started calling it. Telica was 21 when she first joined the guild, and climbed the ranks rather quickly. A mage of some renown, Telica was a slender thing with long and full platinum hair. She usually wore her long grey robe and a simple wooden staff that she had received from the Arcane Order. Mostly simple garments, but those who knew her, also knew better than to cross her. Cold as ice, some would say, or sharper than a glacial spike. Regardless the saying, her purple eyes and expressionless face gave fair warning to anyone who would cross her path. Such was the way for powerful mages.

"Nothing here either. At this rate, well have to take out another loan to keep the land. If we don't find any good jobs soon…"

Telica flipped through the older wanted posters, hoping to find a golden job that would solve the guilds money problems.

"All of these are just petty jobs, pay is horrible, work is undignified, how would take such jobs?"

A stumbling woman, younger than Telica stumbled out of the tavern, giggling hysterically and obviously drunk.

She shook her head and sighed.

"Falina! Just what the hell do you think you're doing? We're supposed to be looking for jobs."

The young girl climbed back to her feet by gripping the soft grey fabric of Telica's robe. She was Falina Dora Foxburn, paladin apprentice of the Stormwind Officers Academy and all around nuisance to the Valkurys Guild. In her studies at the school, she is held in high honors, harboring a natural talent for healing and protection.

"WHAAAA! Bu-sh, iyee wuz firsty-hic."

Telica Grabbed onto Falina's shoulders and sat her down next to the stable post.

"I swear, a 16 year old paladin stumbling out of a tavern drunk, who would have ever guessed that such a devote follower of the light was such an alcoholic."

Telica turned her attention away from Falina and back to the want-ads. There had to be something there that they would be able to take.

Falina was shorter than Telica, but a bit broader and built more for melee combat than magic. She had her long blond hair tied in a ponytail, with a blue shirt and sparkling silver chain mail. Her shield and mace were fastened to her back as usual, covering her small backpack. She had a natural beauty about her that tended to get her in more trouble, especially since she was aware of it. In the Academy, she was the role model student and the most promising leader of the light, but outside of Stormwind, she was a rowdy teenager with a happy-go-lucky attitude and little respect for the local laws. Quite the opposite of what she was training to become. She had joined the guild a few months ago and Telica had the unfortunate job of being her partner, or rather her babysitter. At least that's what Telica thought about the situation.

"You know if we don't get some gold into the coffers soon, we may have to start selling some property in order to keep the guild house."

Falina held her hand up, then turned around and hurled into the grass next to the horses stabled there.

"And all you can do is drink away our property tax money. You will never climb the ranks this way."

Telicia pulled a wanted poster from the message board and looked at it closer. It was a medium sized job, a bounty on several individuals in the Westfall area who were behind on their taxes. Three individuals were wanted by the Stormwind Knights for missing several months of taxes and one was marked up for murder of a tax collecter. The pay was below average, but it was something to consider.

"Hey! For yer in-formashion, I'm shtill young! I'm entitled to ave fun…urk!"

Falina threw her head over the railings of the stable post again, starting to regret drinking at all.

Telica folded the wanted ad and placed it in her robe, then went back to looking for jobs.

"Ugh…besides Telica, you know were never going to get the money by the end of the month."

Falina was starting to sober up from tossing her insides. She did smell something awful as well. At times, Telica was glad that Falina didn't wear her tabard to the guild, or to the Academy.

"Give up, you know there arnt any good jobs here."

Telica closed her fist in anger as she tried to calm herself down. Was it really this hopeless? IN anger, Telica launched a fireball from her fist, shattering the message board and leaving only a smoky stump in its wake. Her teeth were clenched and even the blacksmith across the street would have heard her teeth grinding.

"No! I wont just let it end like this, not after all they have done for me!"

Falina was blown back down to the ground, surprised. She had never seen Telica so upset over anything before. That was until a floating, half chard bounty poster flew down in her lap. Falina patted the burning piece out with her hands then read the poster.

Wanted: Bounty on the Masked Murderer in the sum of 10,000 gold for murder, treason, robbery, defecting, destruction of royal property, destruction of military property, inciting rebellion against the King, inciting rebellion against Alliance towns, raiding…

Falina couldn't see the face of the gnomish photograph, but something caught Falina's eye. The necklace she was wearing…it was the same has hers, a silver cross with a black diamond imbedded in the center with strange writing written along its branches.

"Hey Telica, look at this."

Telica stopped huffing and the fire in her eyes died down only for a moment as she diverted her deadly gaze to Falina, whom she had quite enough of.

"What…is it…Falina?!"

Falina only stared at the photograph, fumbling with her necklace. She never did that unless she was thinking about something serious. Telica, snatched the poster from Falina's hands, and her jaw dropped almost instantly.

"Ten thousand gold?!?! That would cover our taxes for twenty years!!"

She read the description and list of crimes.

"Goodness, she sure has been busy."

Falina only remained quite.

"You go run and tell the guild that we found the solution to our money problems, I'll go and let Marshal Shaw in the SI:7 know that well take the job."

Falina nodded and pulled out a small stone, wrapped in mageweave rope. Muttering a few words, she vanished.

Telica hugged the poster with starts in her eyes. The Valk's money problems were over! Not to mention that she would take a little bit off the top for herself of course, maybe a couple thousand to cover the cost of the new robes and arcane staff she was drooling over at the auction house a little while ago. She marched up the road into Stormwind, laughing and giggling along the way, beaming with happiness.


End file.
